Bringing A New Definition To Ad Sales

We've been going on around here for years that companies need to have a much better understanding of the fact that advertisements are content, too. The point is that a good advertisement is one that not only educates people about a product or service, but that the ad itself is enjoyable to the point that people seek it out. The reasoning is that the concept of intrusive ads is going away. The captive audience is a dead concept. There's so much demand for anyone's attention right now that it's simply impossible to believe you can get away with intrusive advertising for long before people simply go elsewhere. So, you have to work on ways to make your advertising compelling in its own right. It would appear that the executives at ESPN have this mixed up a bit. The sports network seems to have bought into the vision of Steve Jobs' (suddenly their largest shareholder) a bit too much, and decided to start selling their classic commercials on iTunes for $2 a pop. Yes, they wanted you to buy a commercial for $2 (though, some say they couldn't access it, so it may have been a mistake). However, it didn't take long for the commercials to get a ton of negative feedback as people couldn't figure out why they should want to buy a 30-second commercial for $2 -- especially when they could see the entire commercial in the 30-second "preview" iTunes allows. It's great that they view ads as content, but that doesn't mean charging for them, but recognizing that there's promotional value in making them worth people seeking them out.